In-Depth Diving Into The Past With The New Omega Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial

Vintage-inspired designs are popular right now as we’ve seen with brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines and Tudor – and Omega has done an especially good job capitalizing on its archive of great designs. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated releases of 2014 was Omega’s introduction of the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial, which not only rides the wave of nostalgia, but also the unwavering popularity of dive watches. The watch gets a lot of things right, and even the most cynical watch enthusiasts have been won over by its pitch-perfect blend of retro styling and dimensions and modern Omega technologies. We recently got our hands on the very first SM300 to make it into the U.S. for a long term review, even taking it scuba diving in some pretty extreme conditions to see how it performs.

Vintage-inspired designs are popular right now as we’ve seen with brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines and Tudor – and Omega has done an especially good job capitalizing on its archive of great designs. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated releases of 2014 was Omega’s introduction of the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial, which not only rides the wave of nostalgia, but also the unwavering popularity of dive watches. The watch gets a lot of things right, and even the most cynical watch enthusiasts have been won over by its pitch-perfect blend of retro styling and dimensions and modern Omega technologies. We recently got our hands on the very first SM300 to make it into the U.S. for a long term review, even taking it scuba diving in some pretty extreme conditions to see how it performs.

Before, ahem, diving into the details of the new watch, it’s worth looking at its family tree – all the way back to 1957 and the first Seamaster 300, which inspired this latest version.

The beginnings: 1957 Seamaster 300

The original Seamaster 300 (CK2913)

The mid-50s was boom time for scuba diving and watch companies answered with timepieces to suit. Sure, back in the '30s, Panerai used pocketwatch movements in Rolex cases to outfit the Italian navy frogmen, but it wasn’t until 1953 when Blancpain debuted the Fifty Fathoms, arguably the first purpose-built diving watch, with a screw-in crown and rotating elapsed-time bezel. The following year saw the Rolex Submariner and the Zodiac Sea Wolf and other brands would soon follow. In 1957, Omega rolled out its “Master” trio of sports watches – the Speedmaster, the Railmaster and the Seamaster 300, designed for race drivers, scientists, and divers. The latter (ref. CK2913) had the oldest pedigree, with the first Seamaster showing up in 1948. But the early Seamasters were hardly built for underwater use. They were small dress watches that could hardly live up to their name.

The Seamaster 300 was Omega’s answer to the Submariner, a role it has played ever since. Its name is something of a misnomer, since at the time of its debut, the watch was only officially rated to 200 meters (testing equipment limitations, said Omega). It was arguably a more handsome watch than the Sub, with the broadarrow handset, thin coin-edged bezel and cursive script on the dial. The 39mm case and those lovely hands were shared with the Speedy and Railmaster of the same era and the SM300 was powered by a sturdy Omega self-winding caliber 501. These earliest Omega dive watches are highly collectible and more rare than Submariners of the same vintage, yet don’t command nearly the same prices. They’re hard to find in original and decent condition – those acrylic bezel inserts were prone to cracking and were often replaced. Looking back, the watch was lovely but didn’t have the staying power that the Submariner did, perhaps looking a bit too “pretty” to last into the '60s. The first Seamaster 300 enjoyed a seven-year run before it was replaced by a new generation.

The '60s and the Royal Navy

In 1964, Omega debuted an all new Seamaster 300, with the reference numbers 165.024 (no date) and 166.024 (with date). The watch bore some resemblance to its forebear but did away with the quaint broadarrow hands, thin bezel and bumped up the case diameter to a huge-for-its-day 42 millimeters. The watch vaulted into more contemporary relevance. The wider bezel was burlier and had minute hashes all the way around. The hands were also more robust – the so-called sword hands – and lume was prodigious, with the dial markers, 10-minute bezel marks and those massive hands all lit up like a torch for night diving visibility. The case dropped the straight lugs of the CK2913 in favor of the twisted “bombe” lugs, which it shared with the evolved Speedmaster line, and sprouted crown protectors. The second generation SM300 was a bigger success, enjoying popularity not only with sport divers, but also with the military.

Seamaster 300 ref. 165.024 (photo ctedit: 1stdibs)

The watches of the British Royal Navy have long been favorites with collectors, the most famous being the mythical “MilSub” Rolex Submariner issued to Her Majesty’s frogmen for decades. The characteristics that distinguish the MilSub from its civilian counterpart – sword hands and a fully marked bezel – weren’t of Rolex’s devising however. They were copied from Omega. While early 5512 and 5513 Submariners were favored by British quartermasters, in the mid-60s, the new Omega Seamaster 300 was considered a superior diving instrument and adopted for use by Royal Navy divers. These watches are distinguished by the required welded strap bars, military engravings on the caseback and a “circle T” on the dial, indicating the use of tritium for luminescence. Some later versions also feature an oversized triangle for the 12 o'clock dial marker, a feature that also made its way onto civvy versions. These military SM300s are rarer than Rolex MilSubs due to their having been issued for only a couple of years, yet don’t command nearly as high of prices, making them a great vintage buy.

The SM300 was only issued to Royal Navy divers for a few years before it was phased out in favor of the Rolex again, the latter of which was forced to copy the former’s hands and bezel for readability. Where the Rolex was superior was in water resistance and this was thanks to its bulletproof Twinlock screw-down crown. The crown was Omega’s Achilles heel. They had experimented with a pressure-sealing crown they called the “Naiad” (“water nymph” in Greek), which sealed tighter with increasing water pressure. What was a good idea in theory proved less reliable in the real world and the Naiad crown had a tendency to leak at shallower depths where pressure was less. Omega-restored versions usually had screw-down crowns installed.

The second generation SM300 lasted until 1970 when it was discontinued in favor of watches more keeping with the times – funky shapes, experimental bezels and abyssal depth ratings – the so-called “Big Blue” Seamaster chronograph, the legendary Ploprof and the angular SHOM, among others. The family resemblance to earlier Seamasters disappeared altogether, losing the classic lines of the CK2913 and 165.024. This divergence of design and explosion of reference numbers told the tale of a brand in trouble, as Omega fought to stay relevant in the dark days of the 1970s. I’d like to think that if Omega had kept producing the Seamaster 300 as it was in the 1960s, with incremental improvements, it would be as much of a popular, desired watch as its old rival, the Rolex Submariner.

Modern Seamasters

The Seamaster 300 name disappeared after 1970, with Omega diving watches being called merely, the Seamaster Professional. Fast forward to the late '90s and the reboot of the James Bond franchise brought the Seamaster back into prominence. A new Bond, Pierce Brosnan, needed a new watch and 007 costume designer Lindy Hemming chose an OMEGA Seamaster, then the blue-dialed version with the skeletonized sword hands. Hemming chose the Seamaster over other options largely based on the brand’s history with the British Navy, to which Bond had belonged. According the Hemming, “I had known contemporaries when I was in my twenties who were military and naval […] who all swore by their Omegas.’’ The watch brought Omega new exposure and made the Seamaster immensely popular once again.

The

While it was the blue Seamaster that Bond wore, perhaps the reference 2254, produced at the same time, is what he should have had. That reference was closer in appearance to the SM300 of the 1960s, with a black dial, those same sword hands and a fully-marked bezel. Still, Brosnan’s flashier Bond wore blue throughout the '90s and it wasn’t until 2006, when Daniel Craig took over, that 007 donned a Seamaster fitting of a former Navy man. The Seamaster Planet Ocean was immediately compared to the SM300s of old. It had a mix of dial markings, bezel and hands, along with Omega’s signature bombe lugs that appealed to new Omega buyers and those who longed for a return to the Seamaster 300’s former glory. The watch has been a huge hit for Omega but purists still felt like it wasn’t quite right – too big, too flashy. And that’s why this year’s release of the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial was so anticipated. It felt like a watch 40 years in the making. And Omega got it right.

I was 140 feet underwater hovering above the coal bunker of a sunken ship but all I could pay attention to was the watch on my wrist. Maybe it was nitrogen narcosis, which was amplified by the 36 degree (3 degrees Centigrade) water, but I suddenly had an epiphany. This was as close to time travel as I would get. Here I was looking at a ship that had laid in Lake Superior for 70 years, seeing it the way the first divers who discovered it would have – hovering weightless above it with a mechanical watch on their wrists tracking precious bottom time. It might as well have been 1957.

Rather than re-create the more popular second generation Seamaster 300, Omega went further back, to the first version. Like they did with the “First OMEGA in Space” Speedmaster, they faithfully paid homage to a watch released in 1957 – there are the straight lugs, no crown guards and the thin bezel insert and broadarrow hands. But instead of a perfect replica, the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial makes some smart changes.

The steel case is now 41mm instead of the original’s 39. Sure, the aforementioned “Wally Schirra” Speedy stayed true to the 39mm size, but 41 is just about perfect for a dive watch. The bezel, of course, is not fragile acrylic but Omega’s LiquidMetal, an amorphous metal alloy with extreme corrosion and wear resistance, but whose shiny appearance mimics old acrylic well. The crystal is naturally sapphire but domed like its ancestor. And the luminescence is provided by Superluminova instead of tritium, but is tinted a perfect faux patina gold as if the watch had aged in a retired diver’s drawer for 60 years. The dial is a matte black with a bit of texture that one might interpret to be further faux aging but looks wonderful from an angle. The dial markers, small triangles like the CK2915, are not painted on the dial but sandwiched in a layer underneath, which adds more depth and further highlights the dial texture. Best of all, in keeping with the vintage piece to which it pays homage, it doesn’t have a date function.

In place of the trademark Omega hippocampus caseback engraving (which I would have liked), the Seamaster 300 has a broad sapphire display back, which fully exposes the “Master Co-axial” caliber 8400 that is part of the watch’s full name. The clear case back shows off the beautiful radially-decorated automatic movement but also is a bit of a subtle boast, since the watch is full anti-magnetic to more than 15,000 Gauss without the use of a soft iron movement cover, thanks to its silicon hairspring. In addition to its anti-mag properties, the movement sports two barrels for 60 hours of power reserve, a co-axial escapement and free-sprung balance wheel and is chronometer-certified. It also has the nifty “time zone” function, which means the hour hand can be advanced or retarded in one-hour increments without hacking the watch or moving the minute hand. While early Omega co-axial movements were modified ETA 2892 motors, the caliber 8400 represents the culmination of Omega’s R&D and is one of the finest automatic movements around today.

Photo credit: Christopher Winters for HODINKEE

Beyond the movement and bezel, the bracelet is also decidedly more 2014 than 1957. The solid link, three-across bracelet has a foldover push-button deployant that has a hidden extension. Inside the clasp is a small lever labeled “PUSH” that easily extends the bracelet about an inch. It’s a solid bracelet, well designed but not quite on par with Rolex’s Glidelock clasp system. I’m not a fan of push-button clasps, mainly due to a skittish insecurity born from an incident when a Planet Ocean clasp popped open on a dive many years ago. The extension doesn’t extend enough for use with thick wetsuit sleeves and it was only because I didn’t resize the long bracelet at all that I was able to fit the watch over my drysuit cuff. The center links of the bracelet are highly polished, which lends a dressy, vintage look but felt out of place on a tool watch. Most of my bracelet quibbles will be overlooked by buyers who don’t plan to wear theirs beyond the edge of a pool however.

Omega is building several versions of the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial – stainless steel, titanium with a blue dial and bezel, one in two-tone titanium and Sedna gold and a solid Sedna gold. My favorite is the one I tested – classic stainless steel, the way God and Cousteau intended dive watches to be. Though it wore a bit heavy on the solid link bracelet, Omega is also planning to sell its own NATO straps, which undoubtedly will be high quality and high priced. I wore my tester on a NATO for a while and it looked fantastic, more clearance diver than desk diver.

How did the watch perform in real world conditions? Diving in deep water that hovered just above freezing, it maintained chronometer-spec time over four days and eight dives. The bezel is grippy and its action excellent, even when turned with 5-millimeter neoprene gloved hands. Legibility was fine though I could see why Omega switched to sword hands in 1964 – the narrow minute hand doesn’t hold nearly as much lume paint and can be a bit of an eye chart. The bracelet, again unsized for the test, was long enough but at a length properly sized for my arm, the clasp wouldn’t have extended enough for use over my sleeve, though it would be great to fine tune for heat-swollen wrists in the summer. Overall, it is a well made watch that, despite its 60-year old design, is still a fine bottom timer.

There are few things "wrong" with the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial. Some may not like the faux patina markers (I do), the polished center links (I don’t) or the clear case back (I’d prefer a solid back). But these are all minor points. The watch is as close to a home run (or a “6” to cricket fans) as one can get. It ticks the same boxes as Jaeger-LeCoultre’s vintage tributes and Tudor’s Black Bay but goes a step further with the anti-magnetic movement. At around $6,600, it isn’t a cheap watch but comes in less than its old rival, the Submariner, while offering comparable quality. Whether the watch resonates with the general public remains to be seen – retro designs are more appreciated by the sliver of watch geeks who know history than by the masses, who will probably still be drawn to the Planet Ocean. But Omega is one brand that respects its own history and likes to leverage it to good effect. And the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial is the latest evidence of that.

According to Omega, the Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial will begin to hit stores in either late 2014 or early 2015. We will keep you updated on this one as we hear more.